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Barbell Can someone point me to a deadlift thread on Sumo v Conventional?

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Geoff Chafe said:
What is narrow sumo stance? This is a new term to me. My stance is wider than hip wide, and toes slightly turned out, but I would not call it narrow sumo. I would call it a jump stance.
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That sounds like what I call narrow sumo. Wide enough to get the hands inside the legs, but not much more, and definitely not an extreme spread like some lifters use, with the toes almost at the plates. Pretty similar to a KB swing stance. "Jump stance" sounds like the same idea.
 
GOAT Ed Coan is pictured setting up for a Semi Sumo Deadlift.

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No, not what I do, my arms are still outside my knees. I guess my normal stance is nowhere near sumo. Neither is my swing or jump. I do sumo from time to time as back off work after my work sets.
 
The definition/difference here is conventional means arms outside of the legs while sumo means arms inside the legs. Normally one's conventional stance is fairly narrow because going wider means having to reach further down for the bar. Many sumo pullers have their feet almost touching the plates, hence "narrow" sumo for those like in the pictures in the previous posts.

-S-
 
Steve Freides said:
@Geoff Chafe I don't usually recommend the Jefferson lift until someone has some decent conventional or sumo back and leg strength, and it's not the most friendly exercise if your spine doesn't like bending. I humbly suggest that @Benedictine Monk stick with conventional or sumo for a while before trying this.

-S-
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I've gone back to conventional after 2 weeks at Sumo. I also sprung a few dollars for the e-book version of the book by Andy Bolton and Pavel on the Deadlift. Simple, but not easy.
 
In my experience, sumo lifters are born not made. This is where my phrase "it's all easy 'til it's heavy" came from. Theoretically I should have been a perfect candidate for sumo style, especially since I squatted very wide and use a hip only stance.
It worked great til I got to a heavy weight and then- nothing.
It's always good to train the weaker style as an assistance exercise but when you are going for true max efforts which technique is 'yours' will become perfectly apparent.

typically those 'built to squat' with long spines, side hips and short femurs do well with sumo but it's not a perfect metric for everyone and there are MANY different sumo styles and techniques
 
Personally, I find narrow sumo very interesting. I have a theory which I'm going to try to test using video tape of myself - I think there is a weight at which my sumo form starts to deteriorate and I think it's actually pretty light. I want to try spending some quality time I that weight range trying to perfect my form. All this because you can "muscle" a training weight in sumo but you can't do that with something really heavily like you can with conventional, as Rif suggests.

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I've been exclusely training sumo style since October. I want to use it for the next TSC in April.

The form feels safer and more natural to me. The downside is that I can't lift as much as conventional. I'm going to keep training and see where it goes.
 
the key with sumo is being able to break the weight off the floor. If one can, then it usually can get finished. Conventional pull "tend" to stall at lockout more. the problem with sumo is a weight 10lbs too much can look like 100 lbs too much when it looks welded to the floor :)
 
I have seen, more than a few times, top level lifers miss a sumo attempt, switch to conventional with no warmup, and pull it to completion.
 
I'm a big advocate of the SFL-sumo style. I've used it with myself and several students who've come to me with back injuries (post physio approval, FMS, etc). I know this wasn't part of the discussion but it's something I'd been meaning to ask @Steve Freides about considering your history of back injury.

I'm personally built for conventional but when I get heavier it aggravates my L4-5 injury. I lift sumo, and whilst I can't get as heavy, it doesn't aggravate me.

Anyone else used the narrow-sumo in this fashion?
 
@Colin Stewart, everyone's different. My L4-L5 herniation is lateral, which occurs in only about 5% of the cases, to that makes it different. I can tweak mine with my lower back perfectly straight while doing a kettlebell military press, but neither form of deadlift bothers me. I have pulled narrow sumo and conventional both in meets, and I'm a little stronger conventional but not much. I just pulled 350 lbs at a meet, have a lifetime best of 364 set a decade ago, but I pulled 345 narrow sumo in the midst of all that, too. Regular sumo and my knees don't get along, but narrow sumo really isn't all that different from conventional. The reason I pull conventional most of the time is that it's more friendly to take a long pull, call it "muscling" a heavy pull if you like, whereas sumo tends to either go or not go without much in between.

-S-
 
@Steve Freides , yeah my first draft post (which I was writing with my daughter jumping on me and 'somehow' got deleted ;) ) I'd mentioned that all back injuries are different. Interesting you don't see too much difference with the narrow-sumo/conventional. Thanks for sharing :)
 
I can lift more using conventional, but there is several reasons for that. First and most obvious - I didn't spend much time in sumo deadlift.

On the other side, some of my students progressed really quick when I switched them to sumo. Some of them never tried it before and it was just a natural fit for them after only a few sessions.

Nevertheless, even if you lift more with conventional, sometimes you should use sumo.
 
pet' said:
Hello,

I am not a huge expert on DL then I do not really know what to think about this article. Maybe some people here could give details / support / disaprove :
Why (Almost) Nobody Should Pull Sumo | Kyle Mask

Kind regards,

Pet'
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To me this article is begging the question and missing the forest for the trees (if you are familiar with those expressions).

It's begging the question because he spends a lot of time and energy trying to prove that the conventional deadlift is superior (and that most people should not sumo deadlift), but his arguments are all based on premises that favor conventional to begin with.

It misses the forest for the trees because it gets lost making distinctions without substantial differences and misses the big picture:

Deadlifts are good. People should do deadlifts. What style they use is of relatively little consequence unless the main purpose is to maximize the DL in competition, and in that case history shows there is a lot of room for individual variation.

Deadlift style seems to be something that a lot folks get very political and ideological about, IMO unnecessarily. Again IMO, most people are well served by doing a little experimentation, finding a style that feels natural, mixing in other styles/variations for specialized variety (for instance, regular sessions of Dimel DLs for a mainly sumo lifter seems like a nice combination to me; and starting a cycle with your less preferred or weaker style and finishing with your preferred cycle is another good strategy) or just a change of pace, and not worrying about it so much.
 
@pet', the author makes a lot of assumptions and uses a lot of analogies that don't ring true for me, and he also, IMHO, confuses training and competition goals.

@Rif has said it very well - train your weaknesses, compete with your strengths. With that in mind, one should be able to deadlift in both conventional and sumo, one should practice both in one's training - and that's it. If injury or other reason dictates you can only do one style, so be it.

The important thing is to train your deadlift in a manner that's safe and effective by applying the principles we teach at StrongFirst: maximum tension in execution of the heaviest lifts, the ability to work the "volume control" to match tension to the weight at hand, a laser-like focus on technique, and a training program that insures progresses.

-S-
 
There have been lots of great articles about perfecting swings, get-ups other moves from the SFG syllabus.

Karen Smith has also done a great 'one perfect rep' series for bodyweight exercises.

I'd love to see the SFL exercises covered in detail in a few more blog articles that dealt with technique rather than programming.

Apologies if they are out there but I have missed them.
 
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